Watts et al

Climate change and water in the UK

Water report card

A climate change report card for water

Working technical paper
Climate change and water in the UK past changes and
future prospects

Glenn Watts1, Rick Battarbee2, John P Bloomfield3, Jill Crossman4, Andre

Daccache5, Isabelle Durance6, John Elliot7, Grace Garner8, Jamie
Hannaford9, David M Hannah8, Tim Hess5, Christopher R Jackson10, Alison
L Kay9, Martin Kernan2, Jerry Knox5, Jonathan Mackay10, Don T
Monteith7, Steve Ormerod6, Jemima Rance11, Marianne E Stuart3,
Andrew J Wade12, Steven D Wade11, Keith Weatherhead5, Paul G
Whitehead4, Robert L Wilby13

1 Environment Agency, Horizon House, Deanery Road, Bristol BS1 5AH, UK

2 Environmental Change Research Centre, Department of Geography, University College
London, Pearson Building, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK
3 British Geological Survey, Maclean Building, Crowmarsh Gifford, Wallingford OX10 8BB, UK
4 School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford,
OX1 3QY, UK
5 Cranfield Water Science Institute, Cranfield University, Bedford, MK43 0AL, UK
6 Cardiff School of Biosciences, The Sir Martin Evans Building, Museum Avenue, Cardiff, CF10
3AX, UK
7 Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Library Avenue, Bailrigg, Lancashire, LA1 4AP, UK
8 School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham,
Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK
9 Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Maclean Building, Crowmarsh Gifford, Wallingford OX10
8BB, UK
10 British Geological Survey, Kingsley Dunham Centre, Keyworth, Nottinghamshire, NG12
5GG, UK
11 HR Wallingford, Howbery Business Park, Crowmarsh Gifford, Wallingford OX10 8BA, UK
12 Department of Geography and Environmental Science, University of Reading,
Whiteknights, Reading RG6 6AB, UK.
13 Department of Geography, Loughborough University, Loughborough, Leicestershire LE11
3TU, UK
1

Watts et al

Climate change and water in the UK

Water report card

Abstract
Climate change is expected to modify rainfall, temperatures and catchment
hydrological responses across the world, and adapting to these water-related
changes is a pressing challenge. This paper reviews the impact of climate change on
water in the UK and looks at projections of future change. The natural variability of
the UK climate makes change hard to detect; only historical increases in air
temperature can be attributed to climate change, but over the last fifty years more
winter rainfall has been falling in intense events. Future changes in rainfall and
evapotranspiration could lead to changed flow regimes and impacts on water
quality, aquatic ecosystems and the water available for use by people. Summer flows
may decrease on average, but floods may become larger and more frequent. Water
quality may decline as a result of higher water temperatures, lower river flows and
increased algal blooms. Water demand may increase in response to higher summer
temperatures, placing additional pressure on water resources. These changes affect
many parts of everyday life, emphasising the importance of long-term adaptation
that takes these possible changes into account.
Key words
Climate change, climate change impacts, water environment, hydrology, water
demand, water use, water quality, adaptation.

Watts et al

Climate change and water in the UK

Water report card

1 Introduction
Observed climate change over recent decades has been linked with changes in the
global hydrological cycle, including increased atmospheric water content and
changing precipitation patterns (Bates et al. 2008, Allan 2011). It has been suggested
that many of the most severe global impacts of climate change may be mediated by
water (Stern 2006) and that rivers may be among the ecosystems most sensitive to
climate change (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005, Ormerod 2009, Kernan et
al. 2010). It is also anticipated that further warming will intensify the hydrological
cycle, leading globally to more floods and droughts (Bates et al. 2008, Rockstrm et
al. 2009, Giorgi et al. 2011) and increased exposure to water resources stress, even
under the most stringent emissions mitigation scenarios (Arnell et al. 2011, 2013).
Regionally, the impact of climate change on the past and future water cycle is less
clear. In part this is because historical change in hydroclimatic datasets is hard to
distinguish, as hydrological systems exhibit a high noise to signal ratio (Wilby 2006)
and trends may be masked by random variation (Kundzewicz and Robson 2004) or
natural cycles. Projections of climate change at a regional level show considerable
variability, with different climate models or model parameterisations disagreeing
even about the sign of change in variables such as precipitation in some regions and
seasons (Bates et al. 2008). However, it is at the regional level that most steps
towards adaptation will be taken, and these require a good understanding of the
scale and scope of possible change and the uncertainties associated with regional
projections.
This paper addresses one of the possible barriers to climate change adaptation in the
UK: reliable, clear information about the current and possible future impact of
climate change on the water cycle. This paper is organised as follows. Section 2
provides a summary of the evidence of changes to the UK water cycle, looking mainly
at the last half of the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first
century. Section 3 looks at projected changes through the rest of the first half of the
twenty-first century. In Section 4 we consider the implications for adaptation,
identify research gaps and draw conclusions.
2 Historical changes to the water sector in the UK
Here we review the changes that have already occurred in the UK, concentrating on
evidence of links to climate change. This part of the paper starts with rainfall and
evapotranspiration. These lead to river flows and groundwater levels, which in turn
affect river and groundwater temperature and quality. Aquatic ecosystems respond
to river flows, water quality and temperature, as well as light availability and
competition between species. Water supply and agricultural demand are included to
illustrate the impact of climate change on people and their lives.
In examining the existing impact of climate change the problems of detection and
attribution must be addressed. In a guide for the Intergovernmental Panel on
3

Watts et al

Climate change and water in the UK

Water report card

Climate Change (IPCC), Hegerl et al. (2010) define detection as the process of
demonstrating that climate or a system affected by climate has changed in some
defined statistical sense and attribution as the process of evaluating the relative
contributions of multiple causal factors to a change or event with an assignment of
statistical confidence. Attribution methods include direct attribution of changes to
external forcing and associative attribution, where changes in the observed impact
are compared with observed changes in climate. In both cases, it is important to
consider confounding factors; unless all other possible causes for an observed
change can be ruled out, the change should not be attributed to climate change.
Throughout this section we try to be clear about the attribution of observed
changes. It should be noted that a lack of attribution to climate change could be for a
number of reasons; there may be no link with climate change, there may have been
no investigation of the link, or the observed change may actually be associated with
climate change but it may not be possible to identify this with any confidence (in
other words, a false negative).
2.1 Precipitation and evapotranspiration
Rainfall (or more properly, precipitation) and evapotranspiration together drive the
water balance, and quantification of the two forms the basis of modern hydrology
(Blackie and Eeles 1985).
The England and Wales Precipitation (EWP) series includes monthly totals from
January 17661 (Alexander and Jones 2001), and has been shown to be suitable for
use in a wide range of studies across the UK (Croxton et al. 2006). Annual average
rainfall has not changed significantly through this series, but there is an increasing
trend in winter rainfall, although with little change over the last fifty years (Jenkins et
al. 2008). It seems that more winter rain is falling in intense events (Osborn and
Hulme 2002, Jenkins et al. 2008, Burt and Ferranti 2011, Jones et al. 2012), with the
changes being most significant in long-duration events (five to 10 days) (Fowler and
Kilsby 2003). Long summer events also show increased rainfall intensity (Jones et al.
2012). There is also some evidence that the within-year clustering of extreme rainfall
events has increased in recent years (Jones et al. 2012). There is insufficient evidence
to suggest a link between climate change and these changes in precipitation and
some authors have suggested that at the UK scale such a link may not be apparent
until the 2050s in most regions (Fowler and Wilby 2010).
Evapotranspiration includes both direct evaporation to the atmosphere from soil and
water surfaces, and transpiration from trees and other plants. Direct measurement
of evapotranspiration is not practical at a catchment scale, but there are several
methods for calculating potential evapotranspiration from meteorological variables
(Shuttleworth 2007). Potential evapotranspiration (PE) is an estimate of the
maximum volume of water that could pass to the atmosphere if there is no limit to
supply. Actual evapotranspiration (AE) is constrained by water availability (usually
1

Available from http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadukp/

Watts et al

Climate change and water in the UK

Water report card

soil moisture), and cannot be greater than PE. Temperature-based methods for
estimating PE have a long history, dating back to the 1940s (Penman 1948,
Thornthwaite 1948) but evapotranspiration is more properly considered a function
of the energy balance, humidity and wind speed (Monteith 1965, Allen et al. 1998).
There are few studies of historical changes in evapotranspiration in the UK, with no
large scale studies. Burt and Shahgedanova (1998) calculate evaporation from 1815
to 1996 for a site in Oxford, finding increases in PE but decreases in AE over the
period studied. Temperature trends can be used to infer changes in potential
evapotranspiration: temperature presents a reasonable, but not perfect, correlation
with evapotranspiration (see, for example, Dai (2011) and Sheffield et al. (2012) for a
discussion of the impact of different PE formulations on drought indices), though it is
not clear that the relationship will remain constant in a changing climate. Karoly and
Stott (2006) conclude that it is likely that there has been a human contribution to
warming in the Central England Temperature (CET) series2. CET has increased by
about a degree Celsius since 1980 (Jenkins et al. 2008). On this basis, it might be
reasonable to hypothesise that UK PE has also increased over the same period, but
there is no formal study to confirm this.

2.2 River flows and groundwater levels

River flows and groundwater levels represent the integrated response of
hydrometeorological processes (principally precipitation and evapotranspiration)
acting on a catchment. The UK has an exceptionally dense river gauging and
groundwater level network3, essential for the detection of changes and trends
(Hannah et al. 2011). However, there are few records from before the 1960s,
catchment change and water use affects many of the sites, and poor quality and
missing data is a problem for the estimation of low and high extremes of both river
flow and groundwater level.
Groundwater levels are highly variable in both space and time, and there have been
no large scale studies of historical changes in groundwater levels across the UK.
Holman et al. (2011) investigate links between three long English groundwater
records and three indices of atmospheric circulation (including the North Atlantic
Oscillation, NAO). In some periods there are strong links between groundwater levels
and circulation indices, but at other times the links are weak or non-existent,
perhaps illustrating the complex and dynamic nature of the relationship between
climate and groundwater levels in the UK. No links have been made between UK
groundwater levels and climate change.
There are more large scale studies of changes in UK river flow, mainly concentrating
on the benchmark network of sites where the net impact of human disturbance on
flow regimes has been relatively minor (Bradford and Marsh 2003). Hannaford and
Buys (2012) find a high degree of spatial variability in seasonal flow trends from 1969
2
3

Available from http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/

Available from the National Water Archive http://www.ceh.ac.uk/data/nwa.htm

Watts et al

Climate change and water in the UK

Water report card

to 2008, as well as different trends for high and low flows within and between
seasons. In the winter half of the year (September to March) there are increasing
high flows across the whole of the UK. In contrast, there is no obvious trend in low
flows in winter across the UK, though in the west the increasing high flows are
accompanied by a decrease in low flows. There is a weak trend towards decreasing
spring flows since 1960, particularly in lowland England, and a mixed picture in
summer. The UK trend towards increasing winter flows is confirmed for Scotland
from 1970 to 1996 by Werrity (2002). These changes in flow have not been
attributed to climate change.
Changes in flood magnitude and frequency are of considerable practical interest,
because floods can have a serious impact on people and businesses. Again, most
studies concentrate on the period after 1960, because of the increased number of
reliable records. Hannaford and Marsh (2008) find increases in high flow magnitude
and duration from the 1960s to the 2000s, especially in the uplands of the north and
west. In contrast, few trends are apparent in the English lowlands, though Hannaford
and Buys (2012) find greater evidence for increasing high flows in some lowland
catchments over the same period. Regional studies confirm increasing high flows
since about 1960, particularly in upland areas of Scotland (Black 1996, Werrity 2002),
Wales and the West Midlands (Dixon et al. 2006, MacDonald et al. 2010, Biggs and
Atkinson 2011). Hannaford and Marsh (2008) caution that these recent increases in
high flows are not necessarily seen if trends are analysed against longer records,
confirmed by Marsh and Hannaford (2008) for the River Avon in the English
Midlands, and Marsh and Harvey (2012) for the River Thames in south-east England.
Long chronologies of UK floods (MacDonald et al. (2006) for the Tay, Scotland,
MacDonald and Black (2010) for the Yorkshire Ouse) show that there were also large
floods before the instrumented record. Similarly, based on long reconstructed flood
occurrence series extending back to the late 1800s, Wilby and Quinn (2013) find
evidence of pronounced interdecadal variability in flooding across the UK. Recent
changes in average flood magnitude and frequency have not been attributed to
climate change. The only formal attribution work is for the unusual flood event of
autumn 2000 (Kay et al. 2011, Pall et al. 2011) which is thought to have been more
likely as a result of greenhouse gas forcing, though even here the two different
studies offer different interpretations of the increased probability attributed to the
forcing.
In contrast to floods, little work has addressed changes in low flow across the UK.
Hannaford and Marsh (2006) find little evidence of trends in low flow between 1960
and the early 2000s. In contrast, Stahl et al. (2010) find decreases in low and summer
flow in some UK catchments over the 1962 to 2004 period, though it is possible that
this result is influenced by the droughts at the end of the sequence in 2003 and
2004. Marsh et al. (2007) demonstrate that some of the droughts of the nineteenth
century were longer and more severe than those of the twentieth century, but there
is no evidence of trends in drought occurrence or magnitude in the UK.
In summary, there is little evidence of climate change-induced trends in groundwater
levels or low flows across the UK. There are signs of increases in high flows and
6

Watts et al

Climate change and water in the UK

Water report card

floods since 1960, particularly in the uplands of the north and west, but analysis of
longer records suggests that recent flood magnitudes and frequencies are not
unusual. Changes in river flows and groundwater levels have not been attributed to
climate change.

2.3 River and groundwater temperature, quality and ecosystems

Along with flow, water temperature is one of the most important influences on
ecosystem state in rivers and streams (Caissie 2006, Webb et al. 2008), exerting a
direct control on parts of the lifecycle of a genus such as trout (salmo) (Wherly et al.
2007) and affecting water quality, with most chemical and bacteriological processes
operating faster at higher temperatures (Whitehead et al. 2009). River water
temperature is controlled by energy and hydrological fluxes at the air-water and
water-riverbed interfaces (Hannah et al. 2008). River water temperature varies
seasonally and diurnally in response to the dominant solar forcing, with day-to-day
thermal variability in response to weather conditions and flow change.
For the UK there are very few studies of long-term changes in river water
temperature. Webb and Walling (1992) report rising temperatures in the River Exe,
south-west England, from 1977 to 1990. Langan et al. (2001) find no trend in annual
water temperatures from 1968 to 1997 in a small catchment in north-east Scotland,
but report increases in mean daily maximum temperature in winter and spring, and
increased average temperatures in spring. These are tentatively associated with
increasing air temperature, possibly linked through a reduction in the amount of
snow in the catchment. Durance and Ormerod (2007) suggest that water
temperature in upland mid-Wales increased by around 1.5 C in both forest and
moorland streams between 1981 and 2005 when corrected for variation in the North
Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). Des Clers et al. (2008) report an average increase in water
temperature of around 0.3 C per decade across England and Wales between 1990
and 2006, based on an assessment of sampled temperature data from around 3000
sites. At some sites, though, water temperature fell over this period.
There is very little information about changes in groundwater temperature in the UK.
Stuart et al. (2010) investigate groundwater temperature from the Environment
Agencys archive of about 3700 monitoring sites, but conclude that the
measurements are probably unreliable, suggesting that sample temperatures had
adjusted to ambient air temperature during the measurement process.
River water quality is influenced by water temperature, hydrological regime, nutrient
status, point source and diffuse discharges, mobilisation of toxic substances and
acidification potential (Whitehead et al. 2009), making the detection and attribution
of change difficult. Pollution from point source discharges and toxic substances has
decreased in recent years, mainly as a result of tighter regulation and the
introduction of tertiary treatment at sewage treatment works (Jarvie et al. 2006,
Neal et al. 2010), but there is a long history of increasing nutrient levels in UK
catchments (Whitehead et al. 2009), mainly related to changes in land-use and
7

Watts et al

Climate change and water in the UK

Water report card

fertiliser application (Whitehead 1990, Bennion et al. 2012). Upland catchments have
begun to recover from acidification since the 1980s, as a result of reductions in
sulphur emissions (Wright et al. 2005). There is some evidence that climate change
may affect lake acidity through spatial and temporal variations in precipitation
altering the predominance of flow pathways and of changes in lake water quality by
temperature effects on biochemical processes (Koinig et al. 1998, Monteith et al.,
2001). Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentrations have doubled across the UK
since the 1980s (Monteith et al. 2000, Freeman et al. 2001, Evans et al. 2001, 2005,
Worrall et al. 2003, 2004), possibly linked to reductions in sulphur deposition or a
reduction in soil respiration due to drought (e.g. Watts et al. 2001, Clark et al. 2005,
Monteith et al. 2007). Changes in UK river water quality have not been linked to
climate change, instead being driven by changes in land-use and point sources
(Howden et al. 2010).
The most significant impact on UK groundwater quality in the last half of the
twentieth century was the intensification of agriculture and the consequent impact
on groundwater quality from diffuse pollution, in particular from nitrate (Shand et al.
2007). Such changes are thought to be greater than any direct effects from climate
change (Stuart et al. 2011) and there have been no studies linking historic
groundwater quality changes to climate change.
Fresh waters are considered to be among the most sensitive of all ecosystems to the
effects of climate change (Durance and Ormerod 2007, 2009), partly because of
changes in water temperature and flow, but also because most river organisms are
ectotherms (their body temperatures are controlled by their surroundings).
However, establishing long-term climate effects on freshwater organisms and
ecological processes is difficult. It requires long, systematic records to detect change
and there are also many confounding factors that affect biodiversity and ecosystem
form and function; these include flow variation, improving or declining water quality,
habitat degradation and invasive species. Even where climate change is the
underlying cause of local extinction, this may not occur as a direct response to
climate but to other related factors, such as loss of host or pollinator species or
changes in pathogens or competitors (Cahill et al. 2013). More than 30 years of data
collection at the Llyn Brianne Stream Observatory in mid-Wales has shown a
decrease in invertebrate abundance in spring of around 20% for every 1 C
temperature rise (Durance and Ormerod 2007). Durance and Ormerod (2010)
suggest that the loss of Crenobia alpina (a planarian or flatworm) in the Llyn Brianne
catchment was a response to a prolonged positive North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO)
between 1989 and 1994, though they caution that it is difficult to identify the exact
climatic causes leading to such local extinctions. Clews et al. (2010) suggest that
warmer, drier summers may explain reductions in salmon and brown trout
populations in the Welsh Wye catchment between 1985 and 2004. Increased spates
may destroy habitats and extended low flow conditions can cause both scouring and
siltation (Meyer et al., 1999, Wright et al., 2004). Altered environmental conditions
may result in the loss of taxa thereby allowing non-native species to enter riversystems (Verdonschot et al., 2010).

Watts et al

Climate change and water in the UK

Water report card

In summary, there is some evidence that UK river water temperatures may be

increasing as a result of climate change, but no research to link other changes in
water quality with climate change. There is some evidence that ecosystems are
responding to changes in water temperature.

2.4 Water use

In the UK, water is used in households, agriculture, and industry, with power
generation and public water supply the two largest water uses. As the climate
changes, water use may also change, but the links between water use (sometimes
called demand) and weather and climate are complex, with social and economic
changes also driving changes in water use (Watts 2010, Wade et al. 2013). This
section concentrates on public water supply and agriculture as the links to climate
are clearest and most research has concentrated on these areas.
Water supply planning considers the risk of supply failure that results from reduced
availability and increased demand for water during droughts (e.g. Hall et al. 2012,
Watts et al. 2012). There is no evidence for a change in the magnitude or frequency
of droughts in the UK over the twentieth century, though some nineteenth century
droughts were longer and more severe than those of the twentieth century (Marsh
et al. 2007). Water demand is partly linked to temperature, with greater water
demand on hot days (Herrington 1996, Downing et al. 2003, Parker and Wilby 2013)
so demand might be expected to have already increased with increasing average
temperature. However, there is no research to confirm this, which may be because
the signal is too small to distinguish compared to the many other factors that
influence demand.
Irrigated crops cover only a small area of the UK (150,000 hectares even in a dry year
(Knox et al. 2009)) and irrigation uses less than 2% of water abstracted in England
and Wales (Weatherhead and Howden 2009). However, irrigation is needed mainly
in the summer and in the driest parts of the UK, which means that locally it can exert
a significant pressure on the water environment (Hess et al. 2010). Weatherhead and
Knox (2008) estimate that demand for irrigation water, corrected for weather
variation, grew at an underlying average rate of over 2% per year between 1982 and
2005. Much of this growth appears to be due to increased irrigation on high value
crops, partly to assure quality standards, and as the demand is corrected for weather
variation, this increase in water use cannot be associated directly with climate
change (Weatherhead and Knox 2008). Disentangling the effects of non-climate
factors on agricultural water use complicates such analyses (Knox et al. 2010).

2.5 Summary of impacts

This section of the paper illustrates some of the problems in trying to understand the
impact of climate change in the UK. Changes in air and river water temperatures and
in rainfall patterns have been observed over the last fifty years. Air temperature
9

Watts et al

Climate change and water in the UK

Water report card

increases have been attributed formally to climate change, and water temperature
changes may be linked to the same processes that have changed air temperature,
though water temperature is only partly dependent on air temperature. Changes in
rainfall patterns have not been linked to climate change, and the impact of climate
change on river flows and groundwater levels has not yet been detected. This
suggests that adaptation to climate change will need to start before formal
attribution of changes; for example, Fowler and Wilby (2010) estimate that it is at
least a decade before climate change induced changes in winter extreme rainfall can
be detected in south west England, with later detection for other seasons and
regions of the UK. The next section of this paper looks at the possible impact of
climate change on water in the UK over the first half of the 21 st century.
3 Possible changes to the UK water cycle through the 21st century
The impact of climate change on the water environment of the UK has been the
subject of much research, perhaps reflecting both the scale and impact of possible
change and the way that water and everyday life are inextricably linked, not only in
the UK but in most of the world (e.g. Sofoulis 2005). In evaluating possible changes,
it is essential to consider uncertainty in climate projections. Uncertainties in climate
prediction come from three main sources: internal variability of the climate system,
model uncertainty, and emissions uncertainty (Hawkins and Sutton 2009). For many
regions, including western Europe, natural climate variability is the biggest source of
uncertainty for up to thirty years ahead, with greater uncertainty in precipitation
projections than temperature projections (Hawkins and Sutton 2011). Model
uncertainty the way that different GCMs simulate changes in climate for a given
radiative forcing then becomes the most important source of uncertainty (Hawkins
and Sutton 2011). Ignoring the uncertainty in climate projections could lead to
inappropriate adaptation measures; for this reason, it is often suggested that the
results of a range of climate models are used in any adaptation study (e.g. Hawkins
and Sutton 2011). The UK Climate Projections 2009 (UKCP09, Murphy et al. 2009), on
which many recent UK climate impact studies are based, address this problem by
using a Bayesian statistical framework to generate a probabilistic ensemble of
climate projections that combine climate variability and model structural uncertainty
for three separate emissions scenarios (Murphy et al. 2008). This allows an explicit
understanding of the possible range of climate change, though the range remains
constrained by the processes represented in the climate models used in the
assessment.
The UK is fortunate in having access to a growing academic literature on climate
change impacts, much of which covers some aspect of water or the water
environment. Much of the work on possible impacts takes as its basis the UK climate
projections, either in the assessment from 2002 (UKCIP02, Jenkins et al. 2002) or
from 2009 (UKCP09, Murphy et al. 2009). With few exceptions, impact studies tend
to be location specific (e.g. Wilby et al. 2006, Johnson et al. 2009, Cloke et al. 2010)
or demonstrations of possible approaches that could be used more widely (e.g. New
et al. 2007, Lopez et al. 2009, Fung et al. 2013). UK-scale assessments have been
10

Watts et al

Climate change and water in the UK

Water report card

conducted for river flows (Christiersen et al. 2012, Prudhomme et al. 2012), droughts
(Blenkinsop and Fowler 2007, Vidal and Wade 2009, Burke et al. 2010, Rahiz and
New 2013), extreme rainfall (Fowler et al., 2007, Fowler and Ekstrm, 2009), and
floods (Prudhomme et al. 2013a, 2013b).
This section follows the same structure as section 3 and looks mainly towards the
2050s, with some information about changes over the remainder of the 21 st century.
The 2050s represent a reasonable planning horizon for many parts of the water
environment; for example, it may take 20 years or more to plan, design and build a
new reservoir (Wilby and Davies 1997).
3.1 Rainfall and evapotranspiration
The previous generation of UK climate projections, known as UKCIP02 (Jenkins et al.
2002), presented a relatively simple picture of increasingly warmer, wetter winters
and hotter, drier summers through the 21st century, suggesting, for example, that by
the 2080s virtually every summer may be hotter and drier than 2001. UKCP09
(Murphy et al. 2009) takes a broader view of uncertainty, giving ranges of possible
change. This assessment suggests that annual average rainfall may change little by
the 2080s, with the 10th to 90th percentile range between a 16% reduction and a 14%
increase for the medium emissions scenario. Seasonal precipitation changes may be
greater. In winter, UKCP09 projects the biggest increases to be along the west coast,
with a median change of +33% (10th to 90th percentile range +9 to +70%). In contrast,
small decreases are seen in Scotland in winter (10th to 90th percentile range -11 to
+7%). In summer, UKCP09s biggest median change of about -40% is in southern
England (10th to 90th percentile range -65 to -6%), with little change in northern
Scotland (10th to 90th percentile range -8 to +10%). It will be noted that, by definition,
there is a 20% chance of values being outside the ranges quoted. Fowler and
Ekstrm (2009) examine changes in extreme rainfall using a range of Regional
Climate Models (RCMs), finding increases in winter, spring and autumn extreme
precipitation by the 2080s, with increases ranging from 5 to 30% depending on
region and season. Summer changes are less clear, and changes in short-duration
(sub-daily) rainfall events remain unclear, as current climate models are unreliable at
these scales (Fowler et al. 2007).
UKCP09, in common with most RCMs and GCMs, does not offer direct estimates of
future evapotranspiration. It is possible to use output from climate models to
calculate PE using one of the many formulae that exist, but this can be
problematical. The more physically-based methods are considered most accurate
(e.g. Allen et al. 1998) but GCMs do not project all climate parameters with equal
reliability, raising the question of whether it is better to use physically-based
methods with uncertain data, or empirical methods with more certain data (Kingston
et al. 2009). It is clear that different methods lead to different projections of
potential evapotranspiration, at scales from local (Kay and Davies 2008) to global
(Kingston et al. 2009).

11

Watts et al

Climate change and water in the UK

Water report card

What does this mean for the UK? Estimates of changes in PE vary depending on both
GCMs and PE methods. Penman-Monteith estimates generally show increases in PE
by the 2050s (Prudhomme et al. 2012) and the 2080s (Kay and Davies 2008).
Patterns of increase vary seasonally: Kay and Davies (2008) find that some months
can show small decreases in PE using the Penman-Monteith formulation, but annual
changes range from +6 to +56%. Temperature-based PE estimates for the UK show a
similar range (e.g. Kay and Jones 2012) but tend towards increases throughout the
year (e.g. Kay and Davies 2008, Christiersen et al. 2012). All of these studies assume
that meteorological variables alone control PE, but vegetation type and growth is
also relevant. In an attempt to understand part of the role of vegetation, Bell et al.
(2011) allow surface resistance to vary, simulating the closure of plant stomata
under higher atmospheric CO2 concentrations, and find much lower increases in PE;
this suggests that there is a need for more work on feedbacks between climate
change, land-cover and PE.

3.2 River flows and groundwater levels

Much attention has been paid to possible changes in flow as a result of climate
change. Most studies concentrate either on long-term changes in average flow, or on
changes in flood flow. Many studies approach this problem by scaling historic rainfall
and potential evapotranspiration time series, referred to as a perturbation or delta
change approach (Prudhomme et al. 2002, Fowler et al. 2007a). This has the effect of
maintaining current sequencing of wet and dry events but changing their magnitude.
Identification of the scaling factors for a river catchment or other area of interest
requires downscaling from a GCM, for which a variety of different methods exist,
often giving different hydrological results (Fowler et al. 2007a). Combined with the
uncertainty in hydrological modelling (e.g. New et al. 2007), this means that
projections of changes in UK flow cover a wide range, though as the range of
uncertainty is poorly sampled this is probably not the full range of possible outcomes
(Hall 2008, Arnell et al. 2013).
Site-specific studies often consider a range of different GCMs, emissions scenarios
and sometimes hydrological model parameterisations. Wilby et al. (2006) look at a
range of GCMs and emissions scenarios for the Kennet, southeast England, with
some GCMs giving small reductions in summer flow but others leading to increases;
medium and high flows increase in all the GCMs investigated. Johnson et al. (2009)
use the UKCIP02 change factors (Jenkins et al. 2002) to examine changes in flow in
the Yorkshire Ouse, northeast England, and the Thames, southeast England. They
find reductions in low and high flow at both locations, but they note that the climate
model used is considered dry. Cloke et al. (2010) look at changes in river flow in the
Medway, southeast England, investigating 10 different RCM results and a range of
hydrological model parameterisations. They find reductions in flow, especially in
summer, where flows are reduced by 50% by the 2060s. Lopez et al. (2009) use a
large ensemble of climate projections for the River Exe in southwest England,
comparing these to a range of different GCMs. Most models show a reduction in
summer flows by the 2030s, with more models projecting increases in winter flows
12

Watts et al

Climate change and water in the UK

Water report card

than decreases. Lopez et al. (2009) caution against relying on these results, as the
study is aimed at exploring the use of large ensembles rather than estimating
changes in flow. Indeed, much catchment-specific work is aimed at exploring new
approaches (e.g. Wilby et al. 2011, Fung et al. 2013), and it is hard to generalise from
specific studies that use different GCMs and have different objectives.
Two recent studies look at the impact of climate change on monthly and seasonal
river flows across the UK. Christiersen et al. (2012) use the UKCP09 climate ensemble
to model flows in the 2020s at 70 locations across the UK, choosing sites where the
catchment is thought to be broadly undisturbed by artificial influences (Bradford and
Marsh 2003). The approach uses a stratified sampling method to reduce the 10,000
member ensemble of change factors from UKCP09 to a more manageable 20 sets of
factors intended to represent the distribution of the original ensemble. The
ensemble approach allows Christiersen et al. (2012) to draw conclusions about the
range of possible changes in flow. The median projection is a reduction in spring
(MAM) and summer (JJA) flows, a mixed picture in autumn (SON) and small increases
in winter (DJF) flows across the UK. The greatest reductions in flow are in August,
with a median projection of up to 30% reduction compared to the 1961-90 baseline.
For most seasons the 25th to 75th percentile range spans a range from lower to
higher flows; the exception is for the summer where most sites have a reduction in
flow even at the 75th percentile. This distribution leads Christiersen et al. (2012) to
some confidence in a reduction in summer flows across the UK by the 2020s.
Prudhomme et al. (2012) use a different approach to examining changes in flow
across Britain (Northern Ireland is omitted from their study) by the 2050s. Their
model is a generalised rainfall-runoff model parameterised on catchment
characteristics (Young 2006) which means that it is possible to model natural flows at
all the reaches across the country. Such a model needs spatially coherent climate
projections; Prudhomme et al. (2012) use the 11 RCMs that form part of the basis of
UKCP09 (Cloke et al. (2010) used 10 of these 11 RCMs). These provide scenarios of
possible change to which it is not possible to assign probabilities, but which give
some sense of spatial variability in change that cannot be gathered from the
probabilistic approach of Christiersen et al. (2012). Prudhomme et al. (2012) find a
mixed picture of changes in winter flow in England and Wales, with changes of -20 to
+40%. In Scotland in winter the changes are smaller, in the range of +/- 20%. In
spring (MAM) most of the scenarios have reduced flows across the UK, with
reductions of up to 40%, but three of the eleven show increases in flow of up to 60%
in central England. In summer, there is a more consistent picture of reduced flows
across most of the scenarios with reductions of up to 80% especially in the north and
west. However, even in summer a few scenarios have small increases in flow in some
areas, most notably northeast Scotland in one scenario, and southeast England in
another. Autumn changes, like spring, are mixed, with a range of -80% to +60%, with
decreases appearing most frequently in southern England. Annual average flows
change little across the century.
It seems that the results of Christiersen et al. (2012) and Prudhomme et al. (2012)
are broadly consistent, given the different time horizons, but this is perhaps not
13

Watts et al

Climate change and water in the UK

Water report card

surprising as both are derived from the same RCM results. Overall, summer flows
seem more likely to reduce through the century across Britain, but Prudhomme et al.
(2012) demonstrate that increases remain possible, even if less likely than decreases
in flow.
Changes in drought frequency and severity are perhaps the most important question
for water supply, but neither Christiersen et al. (2012) nor Prudhomme et al. (2012)
are able to consider such changes, both because the change factor approach can
only scale historic weather sequences and because GCMs and therefore RCMs are
not good at representing the processes that lead to the persistence of extended dry
weather across northern Europe (Murphy et al. 2009). Long droughts lasting two
years or more are particularly important for water supply in the UK (Marsh et al.
2007, Watts et al. 2012). Blenkinsop and Fowler (2007) consider precipitation-deficit
droughts in six different RCMs for the 2080s. Short summer droughts are projected
to increase except in Scotland and Northern Ireland, though these results are
uncertain. Changes in longer droughts are even more uncertain, but the longest
droughts are projected to become shorter and less severe in most of the RCMs.
Blenkinsop and Fowler (2007) caution that climate models may not be able to
simulate persistent low rainfall events, making it difficult to draw conclusions about
long droughts. In an apparently contradictory finding, Vidal and Wade (2009) use a
slightly different definition of precipitation deficit drought, and find an increase in
long droughts in southeast England by the end of the century. Vidal and Wade (2009)
agree with Blenkinsop and Fowler (2007) that uncertainty is great, and that water
supply planners need to consider a range of possible future droughts. Burke et al.
(2010) look at droughts from 3 to 18 months duration and find an overall increase in
droughts of all duration through the 21st century, though with a wide spread that
spans decreases as well as increases in drought frequency. As an example, the
possible frequency of a drought like 1976 (Doornkamp et al. 1980) by the end of the
21st century could range from the current frequency (perhaps 1 in 100) to 1 in 10
years (Burke et al. 2010). Rahiz and New (2013) consider the spatial coherence of
future droughts, suggesting that by the end of the century droughts may be more
coherent, with a higher probability of droughts occurring in different areas at the
same time.
Changes in flood magnitude and frequency are just as interesting and important as
changes in drought occurrence, but they are equally difficult to assess. There are two
main approaches (Wilby et al. 2008); inference from projections of extreme
precipitation, or downscaling from GCMs followed by hydrological simulation. Fowler
et al. (2007b) use a multimodel ensemble to look at changes in extreme rainfall,
dividing the UK into nine regions. Median changes indicate an increase of 10 to 20%
on 1961-90 extreme rainfall values by 2071, with more confidence about changes in
10 day values than in 1 or 2 day extremes, though Fowler et al. (2007b) report
considerable uncertainty in all of these changes. Fowler and Wilby (2010) confirm
these projected increases in extreme rainfall across the UK in autumn and winter.
Prudhomme et al. (2010) look at changes in 20 year return period floods for the
2080s for two British catchments, using an approach that uses a rainfall-run-off
model to examine the sensitivity of catchment floods to changes in rainfall and
14

Watts et al

Climate change and water in the UK

Water report card

temperature, and then plots changes from multiple GCMs on this sensitivity surface.
While many of the GCMs lead to increases in the magnitude of the 20-year flood,
most would be contained within a 20% allowance. However, some GCMs suggest
that floods could grow beyond this limit by the 2080s, with greater changes for a
catchment in the northwest than the southeast. Prudhomme et al. (2013a, 2013b)
extend this study to more catchments across Britain, confirming the importance of
catchment climatic and physical characteristics in determining how floods respond to
climate change. Bell et al. (2012) use a distributed hydrological model to examine
changes in flood in the Thames catchment, southeast England, using the 11-member
RCM ensemble also used by Prudhomme et al. (2012). Towards the bottom of the
catchment, Bell et al. (2012) report that for the 2080s, the average estimated change
in modelled 20-year return period flood peaks is +36% with a range of -11% to +68%.
Changes in rainfall and evapotranspiration will also affect groundwater recharge and
groundwater levels, though there have been relatively few studies in the UK and, as
yet, no consistent national assessment. Jackson et al. (2011) use 13 different GCMs
to investigate changes in recharge in a chalk aquifer in southeast England. The
ensemble average suggests a 5% reduction in recharge by the 2080s, with a range
extending from a 26% decrease to a 31% increase. There may be more winter
recharge but it may take place over a shorter period. Other studies are based on the
UKCIP02 climate scenarios (Jenkins et al. 2002). Herrera-Pantoja and Hiscock (2008)
suggest that annual recharge could fall by up to 20% by the 2080s in the chalk in East
Anglia, and by 7% in the Devonian and Carboniferous Limestone in Scotland. There
has been little work on the impact of climate change on groundwater levels, though
reductions in recharge would be expected to lead to lower groundwater levels.

3.3 River and groundwater temperature, quality and freshwater ecosystems

River water temperature is expected to change with climate change, but there has
been little work to examine this in the UK. Worldwide, most projections are based on
statistical relationships between air temperature and water temperature: these
relationships are stronger at monthly resolution than daily, and weaker again at the
annual resolution because water temperature varies much less than air temperature
(Webb et al. 2008). Webb and Walling (1992) look at 36 river sites in the UK,
projecting an increase in monthly mean water temperature of +1 to +3.6 C with an
air temperature increase of 2 C; the response was modified by river basin
characteristics, with groundwater and shading from trees controlling response. Van
Vliet et al. (2011) demonstrate that, globally, changes in flow can be an important
control on changes in water temperature, with reductions in flow leading to greater
increases in river temperature; projections of predominantly reduced summer flow
(Christiersen et al. 2012, Prudhomme et al. 2012) may imply enhanced increases in
summer UK water temperature through the 21st century. Future changes in
groundwater temperature remain unclear.
Most chemical reactions and bacteriological processes are faster at higher
temperatures, and temperature controls the growth rate of many aquatic plants
15

Watts et al

Climate change and water in the UK

Water report card

(Wade et al. 2002, Whitehead and Hornberger 1984, Whitehead et al. 2009) as well
as behaviour of aquatic organisms including fish and insects (Durance and Ormerod
2007). More intense rainfall could result in increased suspended solids (Lane et al.
2007) and increased sediment yields (Wilby et al. 1997). Higher water temperatures
may lead to increased growth of algae (Whitehead and Hornberger 1984) and
reduced flows may increase the impact of nutrients from agriculture (Whitehead et
al. 2006). In the uplands, increased summer drought could enhance the acidification
of streams and lakes (Wilby 1994, Whitehead et al. 2009). In urban environments,
poorer water quality may be driven by short duration high intensity rainfall events
(Whitehead et al. 2009). Groundwater quality will be affected by changes in the rate
of recharge, as well as the availability of pollutants and nutrients.
What does this mean for UK freshwater ecosystems? Cold water fish species may be
threatened by increases in water temperature, with invasive non-native fish species
such as common carp Cyprinus carpio and European catfish Silurus glanis being more
successful (Britton et al. 2010). Similar changes already seem to be apparent in the
upper Rhone (Daufresne et al. 2004). Other changes may be complex, and it is
important to understand how other factors interact with changes in water
temperature before making speculative assessments of possible change (Durance
and Ormerod 2009).
Few studies have tried to draw all these possible impacts together to understand
their combined effects. Whitehead et al. (2006) use a coupled hydrological and
nitrate model to investigate flow, nitrate and ammonia changes in a groundwaterfed river in southeast England, finding increases in nitrate and ammonia over the 21 st
century, mainly driven by higher temperatures and enhanced microbial activity.
Johnson et al. (2009) bring together climate models, hydrological models and expert
opinion to draw a picture of the British river of the future, concentrating on
contrasting river systems in southeast and northeast England. They conclude that,
with lower flows and higher temperatures, there may be more algal blooms and that
ecosystems may change, with wetlands particularly vulnerable, especially in
southeast England.

3.4 Water use

Climate change may alter both the demand for water and the volume available
(Watts 2010, Hall et al. 2012). Demand for public water supply is expected to
respond to increased temperatures, the main changes thought to be in outdoor
water use and showering and bathing (Herrington 1996, Downing et al. 2003);
Herrington (1996) estimates an increase of 3% in southeast England between 1991
and 2021 in response to a projected 1 C temperature increase over the same
period. Downing et al. (2003) project a range of increases depending on global
emissions scenario; 1 to 6% by the 2020s, and 2 to 13% by the 2050s. The higher end
of this range is not insignificant, but other components of demand may lead to
bigger changes over shorter timescales (Wade et al. 2013).

16

Watts et al

Climate change and water in the UK

Water report card

Water companies in England and Wales assess the impact of climate change on
water availability in plans produced every five years (Charlton and Arnell 2011). In
their 2008 draft plans, water companies estimated a loss from climate change by
2035 of around 500 Ml d-1 of a total of around 17,000 Ml d-1 (Charlton and Arnell
2011). However, different companies make different assumptions in coming to this
value, and it is not at all certain that this represents a consistent assessment. A
consistent assessment using UKCP09 (but also considering the additional pressure of
population growth) gives a central estimate of a supply-demand deficit of 1000 Ml d1
by 2050 in the Thames basin alone with an upper bound of 1800 Ml d-1 (Wade et al.
2013). Smaller deficits are found by the same date across England and Wales, though
this analysis suggests few problems in Scotland or Northern Ireland.
Water demand for agriculture is also expected to increase with increasing
temperatures (Wade et al. 2013) as crops require more irrigation in warmer, drier
periods. However, irrigation demand is constrained by the availability of suitable
soils and affected by a range of non-climate risks which may present a greater
impact than climate change (Knox et al. 2010).
UK agriculture accounts for around 75% of the total land area (Angus et al. 2009).
Although most crops are fed by rainfall, supplemental irrigation could become
significant if adequate water were available, not only for high-value vegetable
cropping but also for cereals. A changing climate may also increase production risks
(Knox et al. 2012) and affect the viability of rainfed cropping through changes in land
suitability (Daccache et al. 2012). With over half of all irrigated production located in
water stressed catchments (Hess et al. 2010) there are concerns regarding the
environmental impact that any future increases in demand for agriculture might
have on water resources.
In the UK, irrigation is a supplement to rainfall. Many farmers apply less irrigation
water than the calculated crop demand because of equipment or water resource
constraints, or as a deliberate policy to maximise profit. Various approaches have
been developed to simulate future irrigation demand (e.g. Weatherhead and Knox
1999, Downing et al. 2003), and as with other sectors, irrigation forecasts are highly
sensitive to the prevailing socio-economic conditions.

3.5 Summary of future impacts

It is clear that the impact of climate change on the water sector in the UK could be
significant; changes in rainfall, evapotranspiration, flows and water temperature all
affect water quality, ecosystem form and function, water availability and flood
impact. Approaches to understanding these effects vary greatly; rainfall,
evapotranspiration and river flow have been the subject of detailed numerical
assessment, but further impact studies tend to be either site specific or more
conjectural. This affects confidence in the assessments. There is greatest confidence
in the assessment of changes in temperature and rainfall, though the range of
possible changes is great. Confidence in the impact on aquatic ecosystems is lowest,
17

Watts et al

Climate change and water in the UK

Water report card

because of the multiple interacting drivers of change and poor understanding of the
responses of and interactions between species.

4 Discussion and conclusions

This work started from the premise that summarising and synthesising research on
the impact of climate change on the UK water environment would help decisionmakers with effective adaptation. It would be valuable to expand this review to
cover other areas that have not been considered in detail here. Examples of
omissions include consideration of changes in snowfall and snow cover, the impact
of changes on lake quality and lake ecosystems, estuaries, and some aspects of
water use, such as demand for power station cooling, and navigation and recreation.
More detail would be valuable for climate change impacts on mammals and fish, and
it would be useful to consider the specific problems of different geographical areas,
such as the uplands and wetlands.
In all the subject areas considered there is a wide range of possible outcomes,
reflecting a chain of uncertainty that includes natural climate variability, climate
modelling uncertainty, and further uncertainty in the response of the water
environment to changing climate variables. It is also important to set climate change
in its wider context; where the planning horizon is short perhaps 20 years or less
climate variability will dominate (Hawkins and Sutton 2011) and for all time horizons
other social and economic changes will always be of importance (Wade et al. 2013).
Despite the growing body of literature on the impact of climate change on the UK
water environment, there are several areas where more research would be of value.
Changes in evapotranspiration are still poorly understood (Kay et al. 2013), even
though evapotranspiration forms one of the main cornerstones of hydrological
modelling. Droughts also need more work; as there are relatively few droughts in the
historic record, we have little understanding of plausible extremes now, and future
projections are limited by the poor understanding of the drivers of long drought and
the apparent inability of climate models to reproduce persistent periods of low
rainfall. Future flooding also remains a difficult area; intense rainfall (particularly
summer convective storms) occurs at scales that cannot readily be resolved by
climate models, which is particularly problematical for small catchments. Baseline
groundwater temperatures are poorly understood but groundwater contributes
much of the summer flow in some rivers and streams, directly influencing water
temperature. The way that aquatic ecosystems respond to climate change remains a
difficult area, both because many ecosystems are robust to considerable climate
variability and because of the complex relationships between flow, water
temperature, water quality and ecosystem response. More generally, there are few
studies at a scale that helps policy-makers and decision-makers understand the
problems that they face; catchment-specific studies are valuable scientifically but
often provide little on which decisions can be made. Large-scale, country-wide
assessments are inevitably compromised by their general nature, but these are the
studies that provide the picture of change that decision-makers find most useful.
18

Watts et al

Climate change and water in the UK

Water report card

Acknowledgements
This work was funded by the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(Defra), and steered by the Living With Environmental Change (LWEC) partnership.
The Environment Agency managed the work, and the authors are grateful to
Catherine Wright, Molly Anderson and Neil Veitch from the Environment Agency and
to Nikki van Dijk from Atkins for their guidance and support. Many people provided
helpful input to the approach, including the informal working group comprising Jim
Hall, Hans Jensen, Nick Reynard, Andrew Wade, Steven Wade, Konrad Bishop and
Kathryn Humphrey. The views expressed are, however, those of the authors alone,
and not the organisations for which they work.

19

Watts et al

Climate change and water in the UK

Water report card

References
Alexander L.V. and Jones P.D. 2001. Updated precipitation series for the U.K. and discussion
of recent extremes. Atmospheric Science Letters 1 doi:10.1006/asle.2001.0025
Allan R.P 2011. Human influence on rainfall, Nature, 470, 344-345.
Allen R.G., Pereira L.S., Raes D. and Smith M. 1998 Crop evapotranspiration - Guidelines for
computing crop water requirements. FAO Irrigation and drainage paper 56, Rome.
Angus A., Burgess P.J., Morris J. and Lingard J. 2009. Agriculture and land use: demand for
and supply of agricultural commodities, characteristics of farming and food industries and
implications for land use. Land Use Policy, doi 10.1016/j.landusepol.2009.09.020.
Arnell N.W., Lowe J.A., Brown S., Gosling S.N., Gottschalk P., Hinkel J., Lloyd-Hughes B.,
Nicholls R.J., Osborn T.J., Osborne T.M., Rose G.A., Smith P. and Warren R.F. 2013 A global
assessment of the effects of climate policy on the impacts of climate change. Nature Climate
Change 3, 512-519.
Arnell N.W., van Vuuren D.P. and Isaac M. 2011.The implications of climate policy for the
impacts of climate change on global water resources. Global Environmental Change 21 592
603.
Bates B.C., Kundzewicz Z.W., Wu S. and Palutikof J.P. 2008. Climate Change and Water.
Technical Paper of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC Secretariat,
Geneva, 210 pp.
Bell V.A, Gedney N., Kay A.L., Smith R., Jones R.G. and Moore R.J. 2011. Estimating potential
evaporation from vegetated surfaces for water management impact assessments using
climate model output. Journal of Hydrometeorology, doi: 10.1175/2011JHM1379.1.
Bell V.A., Kay A.L., Cole S.J., Jones R.G., Moore R.J. and Reynard N.S. 2012. How might
climate change affect river flows across the Thames Basin? An area-wide analysis using the
UKCP09 Regional Climate Model ensemble. Journal of Hydrology 442443 89104.
Bennion H., Carvalho L., Sayer C.D., Simpson G.L. and Wischnewski J. 2012. Identifying from
recent sediment records the effects of nutrients and climate on diatom dynamics in Loch
Leven. Freshwater Biology 57(10): 2015-2029. Doi 10.1111/j/1365-2427.2011.02651.x
Biggs E.M. and Atkinson P.M. 2011. A characterisation of climate variability and trends in
hydrological extremes in the Severn uplands. Int. J. Climatol. 31, 16341652.
Black A.R. 1996. Major flooding and increased flood frequency in Scotland since 1988. Phys
Chem Earth 20:463 468.
Blackie J.R. and Eeles C.W.O. 1985. Lumped catchment models. 311-345 in Anderson M.G.
and Burt T.P. (eds) Hydrological forecasting. John Wiley, Chichester.
Blenkinsop S. and Fowler H.J. 2007 Changes in drought frequency, severity and duration for
the British Isles projected by the PRUDENCE regional climate models. Journal of Hydrology
342, 50 71.

20

Watts et al

Climate change and water in the UK

Water report card

Bradford R.B. and Marsh T.J. 2003. Defining a network of benchmark catchments for the UK.
Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers: Water & Maritime Engineering 156 109 116.
Britton J.R., Cucherousset J., Davies G.D., Godard M.J. and Copp G.H. 2010. Non-native fishes
and climate change: predicting species responses to warming temperatures in a temperate
region. Freshwater Biology 55, 1130 1141.
Burke E.J., Perry R.J.H. and Brown S.J. 2010. An extreme value analysis of UK drought and
projections of change in the future. Journal of Hydrology doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2010.04.035
Burt T.P. and Ferranti E.J.S. 2011. Changing patterns of heavy rainfall in upland areas: a case
study from northern England. Int. J. Climatol. doi: 10.1002/joc.2287
Burt T.P. and Shahgedanova M. 1998. An historical record of evaporation losses since 1815
calculated using long-term observations from the Radcliffe Meteorological Station, Oxford,
England. Journal of Hydrology 205, 101 111.
Cahill A.E., Aiello-Lammens M.E., Fisher-Reid M.C., Hua X., Karanewsky C.J., Yeong Ryu H.,
Sbeglia G.C., Spagnolo F., Waldron J.B., Warsi O. and Wiens J.J. 2013. How does climate
change cause extinction? Proc R Soc B 280: 20121890.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2012.1890
Caissie D. 2006. The thermal regime of rivers: a review. Freshwater Biology 51, 13891406.
Charlton M.B. and Arnell N.W. 2011. Adapting to climate change impacts on water resources
in EnglandAn assessment of draft Water Resources Management Plans. Global
Environmental Change 21 238248.
Christiersen B.v., Vidal J-P. and Wade S.J. 2012. Using UKCP09 probabilistic climate
information for UK water resource planning. Journal of Hydrology 424425 4867.
Clark J.M., Chapman P.J., Adamson J.K. and Lane S.N. 2005. Influence of drought-induced
acidification on the mobility of dissolved organic carbon in peat soils. Global Change Biology
11: 791-809.
Clews E., Durance I., Vaughan I.P. and Ormerod S.J. 2010. Juvenile salmonid populations in a
temperate river system track synoptic trends in climate. Global Change Biology 16, 3271
3283.
Cloke H.L., Jeffers C., Wetterhall F., Byrne T., Lowe J. and Pappenberger F. 2010. Climate
impacts on river flow: projections for the Medway catchment, UK, with UKCP09 and
CATCHMOD. Hydrological Processes DOI: 10.1002/hyp.7769.
Croxton P.J., Huber K., Collinson N., and Sparks T.H. 2006. How well do the Central England
temperature and the England and Wales precipitation series represent the climate of the
UK? Int. J. Climatol. 26: 22872292.
Daccache A., Keay C., Jones R.J.A., Weatherhead E.K, Stalham M.A. and Knox J.W. 2012.
Climate change and land suitability for potato production in England and Wales: impacts and
adaptation. Journal of Agricultural Science 150: (2): 161-177.
Dai A. 2011. Drought under global warming: a review. WIREs Clim Change 2011 2 4565.
21

Watts et al

Climate change and water in the UK

Water report card

Daufresne M., Roger M.C., Capra H. and Lamouroux N. 2004. Long-term changes within the
invertebrate and fish communities of the Upper Rhone River: effects of climatic factors.
Global Change Biology 10: 124-140.
des Clers S., Hughes M. and Simpson G.L. 2008. Surface Water Temperature Archive for UK
freshwater and estuarine sites. Environment Agency Science Report SR070035. 116pp.
Dixon H., Lawler D.M., and Shamseldin A.Y. 2006. Streamflow trends in western Britain.
Geophysical Research Letters, 33(19) doi:10.1029/2006GL027325
Doornkamp J.C., Gregory K.J. and Burn A.S. (Eds.), 1980. Atlas of Drought in Britain 19751976. Institute of British Geographers, London.
Downing T.E, Butterfield R.E., Edmonds B., Knox J.W., Moss S., Piper B.S. and Weatherhead
E.K. (and the CCDeW project team) 2003. Climate Change and the Demand for Water,
Research Report, Stockholm Environment Institute Oxford Office, Oxford.
Durance I. and Ormerod S.J. 2007. Climate change effects on upland stream invertebrates
over a 25 year period. Global Change Biology 13: 942-957.
Durance I. and Ormerod S.J. 2009. Trends in water quality and discharge confound long-term
warming effects on river macroinvertebrates. Freshwater Biology 54, 388405.
Durance I. and Ormerod S.J. 2010. Evidence for the role of climate in the local extinction of a
cool-water triclad. J. N. Am. Benthol. Soc. 29(4), 1367 1378. DOI: 10.1899/09-159.1
Evans C.D., Monteith D.T. and Cooper D.M. 2005 Long-term increases in surface water
dissolved organic carbon: observations, possible causes and environmental impacts. Environ.
Pollut.137, 5571.
Evans C.D., Monteith D.T. and Harriman R. 2001 Long-term variability in the deposition of
marine ions at west coast sites in the UK Acid Waters Monitoring Network: impacts on
surface water chemistry and significance for trend determination. Sci. Total Environ. 265,
115129.
Fowler H.J. and Ekstrm M. 2009. Multi-model ensemble estimates of climate change
impacts on UK seasonal precipitation extremes. International Journal of Climatology, 29(3),
385-416.
Fowler H.J. and Kilsby C.G. 2003 A regional frequency analysis of United Kingdom extreme
rainfall from 1961 to 2000. International Journal of Climatology 23(11), 1313-1334.
Fowler, H. J. and Wilby R.L. 2010. Detecting changes in seasonal precipitation extremes using
regional climate model projections: implications for managing fluvial flood risk. Water
Resources Research, 46, W03525, doi:10.1029/2008WR007636.
Fowler H.J., Blenkinsop S. and Tebaldi C. 2007a. Linking climate change modelling to impacts
studies: recent advances in downscaling techniques for hydrological modelling. Int. J.
Climatol. 27 15471578.
Fowler H.J., Ekstrm M., Blenkinsop S. and Smith A.P. 2007b. Estimating change in extreme
European precipitation using a multimodel ensemble. Journal of Geophysical Research 112,
D18104, doi:10.1029/2007JD008619.
22

Watts et al

Climate change and water in the UK

Water report card

Freeman C., Evans C.D., Monteith D.T., Reynolds B. and Fenner N. 2001. Export of organic
carbon from peat soils. Nature 412, 785.
Fung F., Watts G., Lopez A., Orr H.G., New M. and Extence C. 2013. Using large climate
ensembles to plan for the hydrological impact of climate change in the freshwater
environment. Water Resources Management DOI 10.1007/s11269-012-0080-7.
Giorgi F., Im E.-S., Coppola E., Diffenbaugh N.S., Gao X.J., Mariotti L. and Shi Y. 2011. Higher
hydroclimatic intensity with global warming. Journal of Climate, 24(20): 5309-5324.
Hall J. 2008. Probabilistic climate scenarios may misrepresent uncertainty and lead to bad
adaptation decisions. Hydrological Processes 21, 11271129.
Hall J.W., Watts G., Keil M., de Vial L., Street R., Conlan K., OConnell P.E., Beven K.J. and
Kilsby C.G. 2012. Towards risk-based water resources planning in England and Wales under a
changing climate. Water and Environment Journal doi:10.1111/j.1747-6593.2011.00271.x.
Hannaford J. and Buys G. 2012 Seasonal trends in river flow regimes and extremes in the UK.
Journal of Hydrology 475, 158 174..
Hannaford J. and Marsh T. 2006. An assessment of trends in UK runoff and low flows using a
network of undisturbed catchments. International Journal of Climatology, 26(9): 1237-1253.
Hannaford J. and Marsh T.J., 2008. High-flow and flood trends in a network of undisturbed
catchments in the UK. International Journal of Climatology, 28(10): 1325-1338.
Hannah D.M., Demuth S., van Lanen H.A.J., Looser U., Prudhomme C., Rees G., Stahl K. and
Tallaksen L.M. 2011. Large-scale river flow archives: importance, current status and future
needs, Hydrological Processes - HPToday Invited Commentary, 25, 11911200 DOI:
10.1002/hyp.7794
Hawkins E. and Sutton R. 2009. The potential to narrow uncertainty in regional climate
predictions. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. DOI:10.1175/2009BAMS2607.1
Hawkins E. and Sutton R. 2011. The potential to narrow uncertainty in projections of regional
precipitation change. Clim Dyn 37:407418.
Hegerl G.C., Hoegh-Guldberg O., Casassa G., Hoerling M.P., Kovats R.S., Parmesan C., Pierce
D.W. and Stott P.A. 2010. Good practice guidance paper on detection and attribution related
to anthropogenic climate change. In: Meeting Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change Expert Meeting on Detection and Attribution of Anthropogenic Climate
Change (Stocker,T.F., C.B. Field, D. Qin, V. Barros, G.-K. Plattner, M. Tignor, P.M. Midgley,
and K.L. Ebi (eds.)). IPCCWorking Group I Technical Support Unit, University of Bern, Bern,
Switzerland.
Herrera-Pantoja M. and Hiscock K.M. 2008. The effects of climate change on potential
groundwater recharge in Great Britain. Hydrol. Process. 22, 7386.
Herrington P. 1996. Climate change and the demand for water. HMSO, London.
Hess T.M., Knox J.W., Kay M.G. and Weatherhead E.K. 2010. Managing the water footprint of
irrigated food production in England and Wales. In Hester, R.E. and Harrison, R.M. (Eds)

23

Watts et al

Climate change and water in the UK

Water report card

Issues in Environmental Science and Technology 31: Sustainable Water. pp.185. ISBN:
9781849730198.
Holman I.P., Rivas-Casado M., Bloomfield J.P. and Gurdak J.J. 2011. Identifying nonstationary groundwater level response to North Atlantic ocean-atmosphere teleconnection
patterns using wavelet coherence. Hydrogeology Journal 19: 12691278.
Howden N.J.K., Burt T.P., Worrall F., Whelan M.J. and Bieroza M. 2010. Nitrate
concentrations and fluxes in the River Thames over 140 years (1868-2008): are increases
irreversible? Hydrological Processes 24(18): 2657-2662. Doi: 10.1002/hyp.7835.
Jackson C.R., Meister R. and Prudhomme C. 2011. Modelling the effects of climate change
and its uncertainty on UK Chalk groundwater resources from an ensemble of global climate
model projections. Journal of Hydrology 399, 1228.
Jarvie H.P., Neal C., Juergens M.D., Sutton E.J., Neal M., Wickham H.D., Hill L.K., Harman S.A.,
Davies J.L., Warwick A., Barrett C., Griffiths J., Binley A., Swannack N. and McIntyre, N.
2006. Within river nutrient processing in Chalk streams: the Pang and Lambourn, UK. Journal
of Hydrology 330(1-2): 101-125. Doi: 10.1016/j/jhydrol.2006.04.014.
Jenkins G.J., Murphy J.M., Sexton, D.S., Lowe J.A., Jones P. and Kilsby C.G. 2002. UK Climate
Projections: Briefing report. Met Office Hadley Centre, Exeter, UK.
Jenkins G.J., Perry M.C. and Prior M.J. 2008. The climate of the United Kingdom and recent
trends. Met Office Hadley Centre, Exeter, UK.
Johnson A.C., Acreman M.C., Dunbar M.J., Feist S.W., Giacomello A.M., Gozlan R.E., Hinsley
S.A., Ibbotson A.T., Jarvie H.P., Jones J.I., Longshaw M., Maberly S.C, Marsh T.J., Neal C.,,
Newman J.R., Nunn M.A., Pickup R.W., Reynard N.S., Sullivan C.A., Sumpter J.P, and Williams
R.J. 2009 The British river of the future: How climate change and human activity might affect
two contrasting river ecosystems in England. Science of the Total Environment 407, 4787
4798.
Jones M.R., Fowler H.J., Kilsby C.G. and Blenkinsop S. 2012. An assessment of changes in
seasonal and annual extreme rainfall in the UK between 1961 and 2009. International
Journal of Climatology DOI: 10.1002/joc.3503.
Karoly D.J. and Stott P.A. 2006. Anthropogenic warming of central England temperature.
Atmos. Sci. Let. 7: 8185.
Kay A.L. and Davies H.N. 2008 Calculating potential evaporation from climate model data: A
source of uncertainty for hydrological climate change impacts Journal of Hydrology 358,
221 239.
Kay A.L. and Jones R.G. 2012. Comparison of the use of alternative UKCP09 products for
modelling the impacts of climate change on flood frequency. Climatic Change
doi:10.1007/s10584-011-0395-z.
Kay A.L., Bell V.A., Blyth E.M., Crooks S.M., Davies H.N. and Reynard N.S. 2013. A
hydrological perspective on evaporation: historical trends and future projections in Britain.
Journal of Water and Climate Change 193-207.

24

Watts et al

Climate change and water in the UK

Water report card

Kay A.L., Crooks S.M., Pall P. and Stone D.A. 2011. Attribution of Autumn/Winter 2000 flood
risk in England to anthropogenic climate change: A catchment-based study. Journal of
Hydrology 406 97112.
Kernan M.R., Battarbee R.W. and Moss B. 2010. Climate change impacts on freshwater
ecosystems. John Wiley and Sons, Chichester. ISBN 1-4051-7913-3.
Kingston D.G., Todd M.C., Taylor R.G., Thompson J.R. and Arnell N.W. 2009. Uncertainty in
the estimation of potential evapotranspiration under climate change. Geophysical Research
Letters, 36, L20403, doi:10.1029/2009GL040267.
Knox J.W., Daccache A. and Weatherhead E.K. 2012. Assessing climate change impacts on
land use and agricultural water demand and opportunities for farmer adaptation. Phase I
(FFG1129) Final Report to Defra.
Knox J.W., Morris J. and Hess T.M. 2010. Identifying future risks to UK agricultural crop
production putting climate change into context. Outlook on Agriculture 39(4): 249-256.
Knox J.W., Weatherhead E.K., Rodriguez-Diaz J.A. and Kay M.G. 2009. Developing a strategy
to improve irrigation efficiency in a temperate climate: a case study in England. Outlook on
Agriculture 38(4), 303-309.
Koinig K., Schmidt R., Sommaruga-Wgrath S., Tessadri R. and Psenner R. 1998. Climate
change as the primary cause for pH shifts in a high alpine lake. Water, Air and Soil Pollution
104: 167-180.
Kundzewicz Z.W. and Robson A.J., 2004. Change detection in hydrological recordsa review
of the methodology, Hydrological Sciences Journal 49(1), 7-19.
Lane S.N., Reid S.C., Tayefi V., Yu D. and Hardy R.J. 2007 Interactions between sediment
delivery, channel change, climate change and flood risk in a temperate upland environment.
Earth Surf. Processes Landf. 32, 429446.
Langan S.J., Johnston L., Donaghy M.J., Youngson A.F., Hay D.W. and Soulsby C. 2001.
Variation in river water temperatures in an upland stream over a 30-year period. Science of
the Total Environment 265 195-207.
Lopez A., Fung F., New M., Watts G., Weston A. and Wilby R.L. 2009. From climate model
ensembles to climate change impacts and adaptation: a case study of water resource
management in the southwest of England. Water Resources Research, 45, W08419,
doi:10.1029/2008WR007499.
Macdonald N. and Black A.R. 2010. Reassessment of flood frequency using historical
information for the River Ouse at York, UK (12002000). Hydrological Sciences Journal 55(7):
1152-1162.
Macdonald N., Phillips I.D. and Mayle G., 2010. Spatial and temporal variability of flood
seasonality in Wales. Hydrological Processes, 24(13): 1806-1820.
Macdonald N., Werritty A., Black A.R. and McEwen L.J., 2006. Historical and pooled flood
frequency analysis for the River Tay at Perth, Scotland. Area, 38(1): 34-46.
25

Watts et al

Climate change and water in the UK

Water report card

Marsh T.J. and Hannaford J. 2008. The 2007 summer floods in England and Wales a
hydrological appraisal. Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, 32pp
http://www.ceh.ac.uk/documents/CEH_FloodingAppraisal.pdf (page accessed 3 January
2013).
Marsh T.J. and Harvey C.L. 2012. The Thames Flood Series a lack of trend in flood
magnitude and a decline in maximum levels. Hydrology Research doi:10.2166/nh.2012.054
Marsh T., Cole G. and Wilby R. 2007 Major droughts in England and Wales, 18002006
Weather 62(4) 87-93.
Meyer J.L., Sale M.J., Mulholland P.J. and Poff N.L. 1999. Impacts of climate change in
aquatic ecosystem functioning and health. Journal of American Water Resources Association
33(6): 1373-1386.
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005. Ecosystems and human well-being: synthesis.
Island Press, Washington, DC. ISBN 1-59726-040-1.
Monteith D.T., Evans C.D. and Patrick S.T. 2001. Monitoring acid waters in the UK: 19881998 trends. Water, Air and Soil Pollution 130:1307-1312.
Monteith D.T., Evans C.D. and Reynolds B. 2000. Are temporal variations in the nitrate
content of UK upland freshwaters linked to the North Atlantic Oscillation? Hydrol. Processes
14, 17451749.
Monteith D.T., Stoddard J. L., Evans C. D., de Wit H., Forsius M., Hgsen T., Wilander A.,
Skjelkvle B. L., Jeffries D. S., Vuorenmaa J., Keller B., Kopcek J. and Vesely J. 2007. Rising
freshwater dissolved organic carbon driven by changes in atmospheric deposition. Nature
450,537540.
Monteith J.L. 1965. Evaporation and environment. Symposia of the Society for Experimental
Biology 19, 205-234.
Moser S.C. and Ekstrom J.A. 2010. A framework to diagnose barriers to climate change
adaptation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
doi:10.1073/pnas.1007887107.
Murphy J.M., Booth B.B.B., Collins M., Harris G.R., Sexton D.M.H. and Webb M.J. 2008. A
methodology for probabilistic predictions of regional climate change from perturbed physics
ensembles. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 365, 19932028.
Murphy J.M., Sexton D.M.H., Jenkins G.J., Booth B.B.B., Brown C.C., Clark R.T., Collins M.,
Harris G.R., Kendon E.J., Betts R.A., Brown S.J., Humphrey K.A., McCarthy M.P., McDonald
R.E., Stephens A., Wallace C., Warren R., Wilby R. and Wood R.A. 2009. UK Climate
Projections Science Report: Climate change projections. Met Office Hadley Centre, Exeter.
Neal C., Jarvie H.P., Williams R., Love A., Neal M., Wickham H., Harman S. and Armstrong L.
2010. Declines in phosphorus concentration in the upper River Thames (UK): Links to sewage
effluent cleanup and extended end-member mixing analysis. Science of the Total
Environment, 408(6):1315-1330. Doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2009.10.055.

26

Watts et al

Climate change and water in the UK

Water report card

New M., Lopez A., Dessai S. and Wilby R. 2007 Challenges in using probabilistic climate
change information for impact assessments: an example from the water sector. Phil. Trans.
R. Soc. A 365, 21172131
Ormerod S.J. 2009. Climate change, river conservation and the adaptation challenge. Aquatic
Conserv: Mar. Freshw. Ecosyst. 19: 609613.
Pall P., Aina T., Stone D.A., Stott P.A., Nozawa T., Hilberts A.G.J., Lohmann D. and Allen M.R.
2011. Anthropogenic greenhouse gas contribution to flood risk in England and Wales in
autumn 2000. Nature doi:10.1038/nature09762.
Parker J.M. and Wilby R.L. 2013. Quantifying household water demand: A review of theory
and practice in the UK. Water Resources Management DOI 10.1007/s11269-012-0190-2.
Penman H.L. 1948. Natural evaporation from open water, bare soil and grass. Proceedings of
the Royal Society of London A 193, 120-145.
Prudhomme, C., Crooks S., Kay, A.L. and Reynard, N.S. 2013a. Climate change and river
flooding: Part 1 Classifying the sensitivity of British catchments. Climatic Change, 119(3-4),
933-948, doi:10.1007/s10584-013-0748-x.
Prudhomme, C., Kay, A.L., Crooks S. and Reynard, N.S. 2013b. Climate change and river
flooding: Part 2 Sensitivity characterisation for British catchments and example vulnerability
assessments. Climatic Change, 119(3-4), 949-964, doi:10.1007/s10584-013-0726-3
Prudhomme C., Reynard N. and Crooks S. 2002. Downscaling of global climate models for
flood frequency analysis: where are we now? Hydrol. Process. 16, 11371150.
Prudhomme C., Wilby R.L., Crooks S., Kay A.L. and Reynard N.S. 2010. Scenario-neutral
approach to climate change impact studies: application to flood risk. Journal of Hydrology
390 198209.
Prudhomme C., Young A., Watts G., Haxton T., Crooks S., Williamson J., Davies H., Dadson S.
and Allen S. 2012 The drying up of Britain? A national estimate of changes in seasonal river
flows from 11 Regional Climate Model simulations. Hydrological Processes DOI:
10.1002/hyp.8434
Rahiz M. and New M. 2013. 21st century drought scenarios for the UK. Water Resources
Management DOI 10.1007/s11269-012-0183-1.
Rockstrm J., Steffen W., Noone K., Persson A., Chapin, F.S. III, Lambin E.F., Lenton T.M.,
Scheffer M., Folke K., Schellnhuber H.J., Nykvist B., de Wit C.A., Hughes T., van der Leeuw S.,
Rodhe H., Srlin S., Snyder P.K., Costanza R., Svedin U., Falkenmark M., Karlberg L., Corell
R.W., Fabry V.J., Hansen J., Walker B., Liverman D. Richardson K., Crutzen P. and Foley J.A.
2009. A safe operating space for humanity. Nature, 461, 472-475.
Shand P., Edmunds W.M., Lawrence A.R., Smedley P.L. and Burke S. 2007. The natural
(baseline) quality of groundwater in England and Wales. British Geological Survey Research
Report No. RR/07/06/.
Sheffield J., Wood E.F. and Roderick M.L. 2012. Little change in global drought over the past
60 years. Nature doi:10.1038/nature11575.

27

Watts et al

Climate change and water in the UK

Water report card

Shuttleworth W.J. 2007. Putting the vap into evaporation. Hydrology and Earth System
Sciences 11(1), 210-244.
Sofoulis Z. 2005 Big water, everyday water: a sociotechnical perspective. Continuum: Journal
of Media & Cultural Studies 19(4), 445463
Stahl K., Hisdal H., Hannaford J., Tallaksen L.M., van Lanen H.A.J., Sauquet E., Demuth S.,
Fendekova M. and Jdar J. 2010. Streamflow trends in Europe: evidence from a dataset of
near natural catchments. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences 14, 2367-2382.
Stern N. 2006 The economics of climate change. Cambridge University Press.
Stuart M.E., Gooddy D.C., Bloomfield J.P. and Williams A.T. 2011. A review of the impact of
climate change on future nitrate concentrations in groundwater of the UK. Science of the
Total Environment 409 28592873.
Stuart M.E., Jackson C.R. and Bloomfield J.P. 2010. Preliminary analysis of trends in UK
groundwater temperature measurements from England and Wales. British Geological Survey
Internal Report IR/10/033.
Thornthwaite C.W. 1948 An approach towards a rational classification of climate.
Geographical Review 38, 55-94.
van Vliet M.T.H., Ludwig F., Zwolsman J.J.G., Weedon G.P. and Kabat P. 2011. Global river
temperatures and sensitivity to atmospheric warming and changes in river flow. Water
Resources Res. 47: doi:10.1029/2010WR009198
Verdonschot P.F.M., Hering D., Murphy J., Jhnig S.C., Rose N.L., Graf W., Brabec K. and
Sandin L. 2010. Climate change and the hydrology and morphology of freshwater
ecosystems. In: Kernan M.R., Battarbee R.W. and Moss B. (eds) Climate change impacts on
freshwater ecosystems. John Wiley and Sons, Chichester ISBN 1-4051-7913-3, p 65-83.
Vidal J.-P. and Wade S. 2009 A multimodel assessment of future climatological droughts in
the United Kingdom. Int. J. Climatol. 29: 20562071.
Wade A.J., Whitehead P.G., Hornberger G.M. and Snook D. 2002 On modelling the flow
controls on macrophytes and epiphyte dynamics in a lowland permeable catchment: the
River Kennet, southern England. Sci. Total Environ. 282283, 395417.
Wade S.D., Rance J. and Reynard N. 2013. The UK Climate Change Risk Assessment 2012:
assessing the impacts on water resources to inform policy makers. Water Resour Manage
DOI 10.1007/s11269-012-0205-z
Watts C.D., Naden P.S., Machell J. and Banks J. 2001. Long term variation in water colour
from Yorkshire catchments. The Science of the Total Environment 278: 57-72.
Watts G. 2010. Water for people: climate change and water availability. Chapter 4 In Fung F.,
Lopez A. and New M. (eds) Modelling the impact of climate change on water resources. John
Wiley.
Watts G., Christierson B. v., Hannaford J., and Lonsdale K. 2012. Testing the resilience of
water supply systems to long droughts. Journal of Hydrology 414415 255267.

28

Watts et al

Climate change and water in the UK

Water report card

Weatherhead E.K. and Howden N.J.K. 2009. The relationship between land use and surface
water resources in the UK. Land Use Policy 26S S243S250.
Weatherhead E.K. and Knox J.W. 1999. Predicting and mapping the future demand for
irrigation water in England and Wales. Agricultural Water Management 43: 203-218.

Weatherhead, E.K. and Knox, J.W. 2008. Demand forecasting water resources for agricultural
irrigation. Final Report to the Environment Agency. August 2008.
Webb B.W. and Walling D.E. 1992. Long term water temperature behaviour and trends in a
Devon, UK, river system. Hydrological Sciences Journal 37: 567-580.
Webb B.W., Hannah D.M., Moore R.D., Brown L.E. and Nobilis F. 2008. Recent advances in
stream and river temperature research. Hydrological Processes, 22, 902-918.
Werritty A., 2002. Living with uncertainty: climate change, river flows and water resource
management in Scotland. Science of the Total Environment, 294(1-3): 29-40.
Wherly K.E., Wang L. and Mitro M. 2007. Field-based estimates of thermal tolerance limits
for trout: incorporating exposure time and temperature fluctuation. T. Am. Fish. Soc. 136:
365374.
Whitehead P.G. 1990. Modelling nitrate from agriculture into public water supplies. Phil.
Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B 329, 403-410.
Whitehead P.G. and Hornberger G.E. 1984 Modelling algal behaviour in the River Thames.
Water Res.18, 945953.
Whitehead P.G., Wilby R.L., Battarbee R.W., Kernan M. and Wade A.J. 2009. A review of the
potential impacts of climate change on surface water quality. Hydrological SciencesJournal
des Sciences Hydrologiques, 54(1) 101-123
Whitehead P.G., Wilby R.L., Butterfield D. and Wade A.J. 2006 Impacts of climate change on
nitrogen in lowland chalk streams: adaptation strategies to minimise impacts. Sci. Total
Environ. 365, 260273.
Wilby R.L. 1994 Exceptional weather in the Midlands, UK during 19881990 results in the
rapid acidification of an upland stream. Environ. Pollut. 86, 1519.
Wilby R.L. 2006. When and where might climate change be detectable in UK river flows?
Geophysical Research Letters, 33, L19407, doi:10.1029/2006GL027552
Wilby R.L. and Davies G.1997. Operational Hydrology. Chapter 6 in Wilby R.L. (ed)
Contemporary Hydrology: Towards Holistic Environmental Science. John Wiley.
Wilby R.L. and Quinn N.W. 2013. Reconstructing multi-decadal variations in fluvial flood risk
using atmospheric circulation patterns. Journal of Hydrology, 487: 109-121.
Wilby R.L., Beven K.J. and Reynard N.S. 2008. Climate change and fluvial flood risk in the UK:
more of the same? Hydrol. Process. 22, 25112523.

29

Watts et al

Climate change and water in the UK

Water report card

Wilby R.L., Dalgleish H.Y. and Foster I.D.L. 1997. The impact of weather patterns on
contemporary and historic catchment sediment yields. Earth Surf. Processes Landf. 22, 353
363.
Wilby R.L., Fenn C.R., Wood P.J., Timlett R. and LeQuesne T. 2011. Smart licensing and
environmental flows: modeling framework and sensitivity testing. Water Resour. Res., 47,
W12524, doi:10.1029/2011WR011194..
Wilby R.L., Whitehead P.G., Wade A.J., Butterfield D., Davis R.J. and Watts G. 2006
Integrated modelling of climate change impacts on water resources and quality in a lowland
catchment: River Kennet, UK. Journal of Hydrology 330, 204 220.
Worrall F., Burt T.P. and Adamson, J. 2004. Can climate change explain increases in DOC flux
from upland peat catchments? Sci. Total Environ. 326, 95112.
Worrall F., Swank W.T. and Burt T.P. 2003. Changes in stream nitrate concentrations due to
land management practices, ecological succession, and climate: developing a systems
approach to integrated catchment response. Water Resour. Res. 39, 1177.
Wright J.L., Clarke R.T., Gunn R.J.M., Winder J.M., Kneebone N.T. and Davy-Bowker J. 2004.
Response of the flora and macroinvertebrate fauna of a chalk stream site to changes in
management. Freshwater Biology 48: 894-911.
Wright R.F., Larssen T., Camarero L., Cosby B.J., Ferrier R.C., Helliwell R.C., Forsius M.,
Jenkins A., Kopcek J., Majer V., Moldan F., Posch M., Rogora M. and Schpp W. 2005
Recovery of acidified European surface waters. Environ. Sci. Technol.39, 64A-72A.
Young A.R. 2006. Stream flow simulation within UK ungauged catchments using a daily
rainfall-runoff model. Journal of Hydrology 320 155172.

30